I’m about 2/3s of the way complete gearing up Cynwyn in BiS or near-BiS gear. The great thing about building a twink is that the gear grind ends, eventually. There is a finite amount of gear available for your level, and it changes very infrequently.

(It will be interesting to see what Cataclysm does to current twinking equipment. Kinda exciting, actually!)

There are three recent changes to gear that mages will be interested in: new Spidersilk tailoring patterns, heirloom items, and rewards from the daily random dungeon satchel. Any guide that doesn’t take these into account is outdated.

I’ve noticed as I look at various twinking gear lists that though there are some slots with clear BiS items, there are others where it’s not so clear. Just because someone puts together a list and puts it on the internet doesn’t mean you’re excused from using your grey matter.

I’m just saying!

So, instead of throwing up a gear list at the start, I’m going to talk about why I’m choosing certain items, and then see how the gear list looks at the end.

I talk a lot about stat priority on CBM, but gear at level 19 is much more simply (and poorly) itemized than at level 80. Just because something has worthless stats doesn’t mean it’s not BiS for a lot of classes, and Spidersilk Drape is definitely one of those items. It’s long, it’s blue, it has Stamina, and it has Hit. Sexy, sexy Hit, which is so very rare at this level. This easily-available crafted cloak is good for offensive casters, rogues, hunters… Well, I can say that it’s good for them, but I don’t really know.

I worry sometimes about my devotion to the Church of Hit. The chance to miss someone of equal level in WoW is 4%, or about the same as rolling a 1 on a 20-sided die. To be safe in PvP you should have a little extra to counter elven racials and class abilities. I don’t think any if those class abilities are even available at level 19, so Alliance casters and Horde melée classes need 6%, while everyone else just needs 4%. And this one cloak supplies about half of what you need.

So, if you’re like me and subscribe to the philosophy that Hit outweighs every other stat until you reach the cap, then Spidersilk Drape is clearly BiS. If there were enough items in other slots with Hit, you might be able to swap this out for the cloak that comes as a reward for the new LFG random dungeon Satchel of Helpful Things, which swaps out Hit for Intellect.

But since there’s not a lot of Hit to go around, I feel pretty comfortable going with Spidersilk Drape for my mage’s cloak.

Holy moly. I hope I don’t have a post to write about every. single. piece. of gear. We’ll never finish if I do!

The Spidersilk Cloak is BiS for a lot of classes, but it’s somewhat dependent on what spec you’re playing, which role you’re filling, and what kind of player you want to be.

I’m a really big fan of the cloak and certainly use it on my casters as I level them up, but there are other things that sway me with some classes. Even my caster twinks actually will occasionally switch to a different cloak though they usually have one of these as well to switch gear in between bits of combat for whatever role I’m filling. Sometimes I put on my Int cloak, sometimes my Stam cloak, and sometimes the Spidersilk; it changes with the situation.

The BiS cloak for most of the melee classes you mentioned is generally considered to be the Sentry Cloak because it offers both Stamina and Agility. You don’t have Hit, but you do have a nice boost to a dps stat that also influences your Dodge rating as well as your Crit. Most dps classes are more concerned with burst damage than they are hit since their attack speeds tend to be rather high as well.

My Orc Rogue doesn’t bother with Spidersilk very often any more because when he’s seriously worried about hitting a target I switch him over to dual wielding Smite’s Reavers (both have 2% Hit) combined with his racial Axe Expertise, and very rarely miss while using them. Spidersilk sits largely unused in his bags though he does have it if necessary.

So there are other ways to improve your hit rating besides gear in the 19 bracket. Warriors, Shamans, and Paladins I’m almost positive have no Hit talents in the 19 Bracket. Druids I know do not since I’m twinking one right now. And any classes I haven’t mentioned I’m not familiar enough with to not have to look it up, though I would doubt that they have hit talents (could be wrong though).